


hearts so loud they beat in turn

by eudaimon



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Canon Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:42:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate Fick would do anything to keep his ship flying; his new cargo is making that look harder and harder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hearts so loud they beat in turn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aflaminghalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflaminghalo/gifts).



> Cross-over with Firefly. Contains the violent death of a minor character. Title from "Heaven's No Place" by Horse Feathers.

_He has no time; loneliness is a stinger in his mind._  
A mind with two hearts, each with two parts,  
all of which ache. 

 

The war is never really over. It's never really _been_ over. He still wakes in the night, sweating, remembering the way the sky had flared over Serenity Valley. If he's good for the rest of his life, it'll be in the hope that he never has to see the sky change like that again, or that he never has to believe in anything else so deeply.

He likes to tell himself that he couldn't afford belief like that again.

He nurses the drink between curled fingers. She's late, but their lives are built on inexact science; it was true during the war and it's doubly true now. They're nowhere that they mean to be. For a while, he'd entertained the notion of joining that crew, if only to feel like he belonged again, but the fact was that they'd lost their wars years ago, and he'd needed something to believe in that a Browncoat sergeant couldn't give him, however much of a big damn hero he'd proved himself to be. He scraped together the money for his own ship and, when the Resistance had gotten hold of him with a message plucked out of space and passed on by Mr Universe, he'd answered the call. Of course he had. He believed in too much, no matter what he told himself; he tried to bury it in the ash and sand of Serenity Valley but, in the end, it was still true: he had a good heart.

Once, he'd been given a piece of advice and it had stuck with him: it doesn't matter what ship you fly; just make sure that you love her more than anything else that moves..

That's all.

"Hope you've got enough coin to buy a lady a drink, LT."

He glances over his shoulder and there she is, solid and lovely in her long coat with her hair pulled back from her face. She hasn't changed in the years since the war; he wonders how much he's changed, since then.

Once upon a time a war was fought and lost and the world was very changed and everyone in it was very changed too.  
He was very changed.

"Hey, Zoe," he says, gesturing to the bartender for another of the same. She slides onto to the stool next to him. He pretends not to notice how many guns she's carrying.  
"Nice to see you, Nate," she says.

Sometimes, she calls him 'LT', sometimes, Sir. About half of the time, she uses his name. She sends letters that catch up with him in strange places, talks about her ship and her crew. Some names he recognises (how to ever _forget_ a man named Malcolm Reynolds, heroic in human, unbelievable ways, has always entirely eluded him), some names he doesn't (he's glad that her husband makes her happy). He writes back, but never has much to say. Ray is a nightmare, but he's the best pilot in the business. Mike Wynn keeps them all steady. The _Semper Fi_ stays in the air. He does his job, ferrying people out to the rim to newer, safer lives, a long way away from home. A long way from where the Alliance can touch them.

He does what he can.

_Serenity_ 's docked in one part of the city, the _Semper Fi_ 's in another, but they've got a little time. It's good to see her. Sometimes, it's easy to feel like Serenity valley was a dream and that everything else that followed after it, that's the reality. He needs to see Zoe every so often to remember that, once, everything was ragged. Once, they were all heroes.

When it's time to leave, she leans in and cradles his face with one long-fingered hand, kisses his jaw. She's not wearing perfume; she smells of nothing but smoke and soap and gunpowder.

"Go safe, Sir," she says, her hand resting on his shoulder. "We're sending someone your way."  
"Oh?" he asks, lifting his bag and dropping it over his head, strap across his chest.

Zoe nods.

"Watch your back, Nate," she says.  
At the door, they go their separate ways.

Nobody sees them leave.

*

She isn't much, but she's his. A little ship, not even as impressive as the Firefly class. Her engine at her centre, and it beats like a heart. Hurtling through space, she throws off light like a dying star. Zoe's told him that _Serenity_ was love at first sight for Mal, and, maybe the _Semper Fi_ wasn't that for Nate, but they've been together for a long time now, and he's learned. It's not always been easy, but he's made do.

Ray's sitting at the end of the gang-plan, swinging his feet, trailing his boot-laces, cigarette between his lips. As Nate walks up, Ray pauses, takes another long drag on his cigarette and then manages a sloppy salute.

"Supplies supplied, debts settled and the cargo's settling his ass in." A pause, for dramatic effect. Ray squints in the sun. "It's a fine ass, Sir."

"Thank you for keeping me up to date, Ray," says Nate, managing his best flat-look. It's a look that's gotten him a long way. "Almost ready to go? We're in danger of outstaying our welcome."

So much of what they do depends on dumb luck.

In the mess, Mike's sitting with a cup of coffee and a paper. The day will come, probably on this trip, that the coffee's run out, and the paper's out of date, but Mike will sit there, for a couple of minutes each day, finding his calm. Nate spends a lot of his time on the bridge with Ray, who plays terrible music and sings. He keeps them in the air, day after day and this isn't safe for any of them, so Nate makes allowances. Still, he can see the need to seek out calm. He walks to the pot, pours himself a mug of coffee and leans against the counter. He needs a fresh shirt. He wants to wash his face.

"Cargo's on?" he asks, instead.  
"Present and accounted for," says Mike, pausing before he turns the page. "Pretty heavy cargo this time, Nate. Just so you know."

They always talk about the "cargo", never "person" or "refugee". Never, _ever_ "criminal".  
But they know what they're talking about.

Nate takes a moment to enjoy his coffee. He gets no time to enjoy anything anymore.  
It's the life he chose.

"Where?"

Mike gives him a look that says, _c'mon, Nate. You know this._

"Guest quarters," he says. "How long 'til you want to be in the air?"  
"Fifteen mikes, tops."

Mike nods. He turns his page.  
Nate leaves his coffee on the counter.

He finds the cargo in the narrow bunk-room that's tucked in beside the engine room; noisy and hot, best place to hide something in plain sight. The door isn't really a door at all. Nate stands there, leaning his shoulder against the solid stuff that his ship is made from. The cargo is tall, solidly built, hair shaved short, muscle thick beneath the thin stuff of his shirt. There's a duffle bag on the floor by the bed. As Nate watches, he sits down and unlaces his boots.

"Didn't anybody ever tell you that it's not polite to stare?" he says.   
Nate's surprised by how quiet his voice is.

"Sorry," he says, reflexively. "Just checking that you'd got everything you need. Expecting to be off the ground in the next five mikes."

He tries to maintain distance; it's easy when he hears, down the line, that they haven't made it.  
He's heard that it's hard to stop the signal; human beings are decidedly easier to handle.

"Aside from feeling like I'm going to be spending the next two weeks in a grave?" The smile is small and closed but somehow disconcerting. "Everything's fine and dandy, Captain."

There's a trace of formality there that makes Nate want to ask who he is and what he's running from, but that's something that they never do. Nate runs a tight ship and, more than that, he runs an honest ship which means that, when they get raided by the Alliance, he wants to be able to look them straight in the eye and speak as honestly as he can.

For a given value of honest.

He settles for the one question that he can, in good conscience, ask.

"What's your name, Cargo?" he asks.

They look at each other for a long moment.

"Brad."  
"Welcome aboard, Brad," says Nate, turning. "You need anything, you make some noise, hoo-rah?"

He can hear the engine starting up, feel the ship trembling under his boots.  
He reaches out and pats the wall with one hand. _I love you_ , he tells her, silently. _Please fly._

*

Sometimes, it's amazing that they move at all. It shouldn't work, but it does. Ray pilots from his duct-taped chair and, when the ship splutters and grinds, Nate takes over and Ray disappears into the engine room. They listen to him swear and sing all day in equal fucking measure and, somehow, they stay in the sky. Nate Fick has never been the praying type, not even during the war, not even during the battle of Serenity Valley, when the lost so badly and lost so much. He doesn't pray. He believes in himself and the people around him. It sees him through.

Some days are easier than others.

They're three days out of dock. Mike tells Nate that Brad's eating; that he sits in silence, eats, leaves. He moves with military precision, with disturbing grace.

"If I was a bettin' man, I'd say ex-military, for sure," says Mike, but Nate shakes his head. They're in the wrong line of business for ex-military. Nobody knows that better than Mal and Zoe. It's a dangerous life, right here on the raggedy edge, running rebels and outlaws out to tiny terraformed worlds on the rim. Sometimes, he wonders when they'll get a chance at a quiet life.

Once, Mike said something to him about sleeping when they're dead.  
Nate remembers trying not to feel like that was a prophecy, at the time.

At the moment, they're limping. Ray's doing what he can. On off hours, Nate lies in his bunk listening to the shuffle and hum of the _Semper Fi_ all around him and he wonders how long they can go on fighting for and how long they can possibly have left.

He just wishes that they could get up more speed.

Brad sleeps with the door wide open, like he's avoiding being entirely enclosed. It's a feeling that Nate can understand. One day, Nate finds Ray standing there, wiping off greasy hands on a greasier rag, studying the hunched shape of the sleeping man in the narrow rack.

"What the fuck do you think his deal is, Homes?" asks Ray, wing of his hair falling into his shrewd, dark eyes, slipping a cigarette between his lips. "Motherfucker's built like a fucking _tank_ , yo."  
"Don't ask me, Ray; we're barely spoken. And don't you dare smoke that on my boat."  
"Aye, aye, Cap," says Ray, and Nate finds himself grinning as he walks away.

It's two of three days later that he's sitting at the worn wooden table in the mess, head spinning with tiredness, coffee cradled between his hands. Not sleeping well while his ship's not running well. His eyes have just begun to slip closed when a chair scraped against the floor.

He opens his eyes and Brad is sitting opposite him. His short hair is damp, water beading on the tan skin of the side of his face. His shirt is made of that same thin stuff that seems to stick across his shoulders.

"So talk to me," he says.  
"What?" He's so tired that it's easy to feel bewildered.

"You said we'd barely even spoken," says Brad, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "So talk to me."

It's not often that Nate finds himself at a loss for what to say. There's something about Brad that sends him off-balance; he finds himself grasping for things that, usually, he'd have firmly in hand.

"You first," he says, finally, shifting his weigh tin his chair and lifting his coffee-cup. "You know all about me; anything you didn't know, you could figure out from the ship."

Brad nods. He gets up from the table and pours himself coffee in a tin cup. 

"That's not true," he points out, pouring himself a drink. "You keep yourself wrapped up pretty fucking tight, you know. There's not a lot of you around here at all."

Nate can concede that that might be true.

"So tell me one thing," he says.

Brad pauses, coffee up halfway to his mouth.

"I'm never going home again," he says.

They sit. No matter what he's said, Nate's aware of being the one doing most of the talking. Nothing special; little stories about the crew, the war. He finds himself noticing Brad's hands on the table-top. It becomes harder and harder to think of Brad as just 'cargo'.

“This is a long road you're on,” he says, finally. He's well aware of how leading that is, and it's a strange moment...heavy, in a way that he can't put his finger on. Brad looks at the table and it seems like he might say something but then Ray clatters into the mess, singing loud and off-key and, just like that, the moment's gone like he never even had it in the first place.

Brad smiles and shrugs.

“What can I say?” he drawls, pushing up out of his chair, infuriatingly glib. “I was always told I had a wandering heart.”

Nate doesn't trust him as far as it would be possible to kick him.  
He keeps his distance and waits.

*

He watches while Ray and Brad bond in inexplicable, instantaneous ways. He loses count of the amount of times he finds them on the bridge, all watches, talking shit about nothing. It's an easy intimacy that they fall into, one that Nate's not sure he's had with anyone since the war was over and the still aching parts of him set like bone.

He can't help but feel jealous. Mike sees that in him and, one day, Nate ends up with a warm, heavy hand resting on his shoulder.

“Don't let it eat at you, Nate,” he says. “They're just kids. They can't know.”

But Brad's no younger than he is and it does; it eats at him.

*

He needs Ray in three places at once but, in the end, he leaves him at the controls which judder and shake and him and Mike spends hours up to their elbows in the _Semper Fi_ 's guts, just trying to hold her together while she splutters and coughs. They've got no choice; there's no money to pay anyone to fix her and, anyway, Nate won't touch solid ground until Brad gets to where he's going.

So they make do.

He's toiling over the engine one night, taking things apart and putting them back together, willing them to keep flying. He pauses, leaning his forehead against the lip of the casing and he's aware of a presence at his shoulder.

“It's okay, Mike,” he says. “I got this.”   
But, at he says it, he realises that it's not Mike standing there.

“Let me help,” says Brad, easing into the tight space. Nate pauses and, for a moment, he feels Brad against the length of him, all long him, chest to toes. He blinks; he's surprised to feel his breath catch. He tries to remember the last time that somebody touched him like that; he's used to Mike's hand on his shoulder, used to Ray's hand on his ass, shoving him out of the way as they slide into the cockpit. Nothing like this.

There's a lot about Brad that hasn't slid into place yet.

Brad knows what he's doing; it's clear in the economy of his movements, the spare way that he reaches out for parts or tools. Nate finds that they fall into sync easily. They stand over the engine touching at their shoulders and their hips.

Nate feels himself begin to relax by inches.

It shouldn't happen the way it does. They're barely talking but, when Nate gets careless and burns a fingertip, he hisses and Brad turns his head to look. Nate's sucking on his wounded finger like a kid.

Brad rolls his eyes.

“You're a fucking mess, Nate,” he says, a flicker of the way that he is with Ray, reaches out to wipe a smudge of oil off Nate's cheek and, somehow, that turns into fingers cupped against his cheek. Nate feels his eyes widen as Brad leans in. It's not even possible that he could have forgotten how to be touched like this. It's so far from plausible.

But, somehow...

There's barely room in the engine-bay to breathe.

The last person Nate kissed: a pale girl with white already streaking her long, dark hair, her mouth tight and sweet and, when they were done, she wiped her hands on her shirt and turned away.

Kissing Brad is undeniably different; there's a scratch of stubble, as much push back as there is any hint of give. Nate shoves forward with his mouth and his hips – he's done all of the surrendering that he ever means to do this lifetime. His hands end up on Brad's hips, fingers slipping under the hem of his t-shirt and Brad's bare skin is impossibly hot. Nate's fingertips read imperfections that reasonably must be scars.

“Who the hell are you?” he mumbles on the exhale. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Brad's smile is tight and close.

“I'm running from everything I ever was,” he says, finally. “I'm brand new. I don't exist.”

Nate's aware of wanting to ask what could be so gorram terrible that you'd need to run all of the way to the rim to be rid of it but there's an alarm going off next to his head. Stupidly, for a moment, he thinks that they must have triggered it.

He reaches out and hits the comm with the heel of his hand.

“What, Ray?”  
“You...need to fucking see this, Nate. Right now.”

He's never liked that sudden, clipped tone that Ray has a tendency to slip into when things get rough; he might be a fuck-up, but he's the best damn pilot in the 'verse and there's nobody else that Nate would trust to have his six.

When Ray sounds like that, Nate all but runs.

*

It's an Alliance cruiser, one of the small ones designed for speed, not comfort. Someone travelling that light and that quick is almost always bad news. Still, they have an SOP in place for this, tempered and honed by practise and baptism by fire.

“Go,” he says to Brad, picking his jacket up from the back of the chair where he discarded it days ago. 

“What?” says Brad, eyes wide and surprised in a tan face, like he knows that he can be useful here. But Nate's not about to risk that. His eyes stay fixed on the viewscreen.

“All cargo to be stowed before we're boarded,” says Nate, his hand brushing against his side-arm. “That's an order.”

And Brad hesitates but he also goes and there are no more kisses, then.

“Which was are we playing this, Homes?” asks Ray, neat and focused in a way that Nate almost never sees, but is always grateful for. 

There are two ways that they could play this: the fact that Nate looks years younger than he is has always worked in their favour. He plays the innocent, upstanding citizen well and Mike is stoic and silent and Ray keeps his mouth shut and, usually, it gets them through. 

And, if that fails, then there's always the fact that two of them fought at Serenity Valley and so they know exactly how far they can go before they're beaten.

But they'd rather it all went quietly.

“Easy does it, Nate,” says Mike, which earns him a look.  
“You're a fucking nag, Mike,” says Nate, which means, _I know_ and _I will_.

They're boarded by a small, neat woman in an Alliance uniform. Nate isn't stupid enough to underestimate her; he remembers Zoe in the days before they earned their war stories. He knows how utterly they've all been changed by war.

“Are you Nathaniel Fick?”  
“I am.”  
“And this is the _Semper Fi_ , registered with the authorities on Osiris.”  
“That's right.”

She spends a long time looking at the paper in her hand. Nate risks a glance in Mike's direction. He shifts his weight and feels his weapon pull in the holster.

“How long have you been doing this, Nate Fick?”

Nate musters the most convincing look of wide-eyed innocence that he can manage, even as he feels everything begins to slide towards irrevocably fucked.

“Officer, I don't know what you mean. I've only ever tried to...”

She holds up one hand to silence him.

“This is a warrant,” she says, holding it up to show him. “It says that you've been using this ship to aid in the escape of wanted individuals and entitles me to impound this vessel and arrest anybody aboard.” She takes the time to look at all three of them in turn. “This ends now, Fick. Hand over your current cargo. Hand him over and I won't blow this piece of shit out of the verse.”

“What the fuck happened to _impound?_ ” asks Ray, wide eyed.  
Nate's still looking at Mike.

Everything happens very quickly after that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ray reaching for the gun that's slid underneath the pilot's console. He sees Mike's hand come to rest on Ray's shoulder. He hears something behind him but he doesn't register what it is, same as he can't place the sudden feeling of absence against his ribs until he sees his gun in Brad's grip and Brad's hand isn't shaking, not at all.

Shit.

Her eyes widen a fraction but, other than that, she doesn't move. Nate's aware of Mike moving but his eyes don't leave Brad, whose face is set and grim. Unbelievably, impossibly, the woman smiles.

“Colbert.”

Brad shifts his grip slightly.

“Hello, Juli.”  
“It was always going to be me, Brad,” she says and she's still smiling when Brad nods.

“I know,” he says.  
And fires.

She's not the first person that Nate's seen die, not even close but, for a moment, everything hangs in stillness all the same. Her body hits the deck and they all just stand there and the air smells of shot and blood.

Which makes him think of Zoe.

Mike is on his knees next to the body, Ray is swearing silently under his breath; Brad lets the gun drop and Nate is still looking at him.

“What the _fuck_ , Homes?” says Ray, his eyes wide and dark. Mike looks up at Nate.

“Well, this situation just slid right on into clusterfuck,” he says. 

Nate wipes at the blood on the side of the face.

“We need to be on the move,” he says. “We need to do something about the body. And...” he pauses for a moment. “Ray. Can you do something about her ship?”

They'll run. They've run before.  
And they'll pray that she didn't send any transmissions before she boarded. Maybe they'll get lucky. Maybe they'll make it right to the raggedy edge. Maybe God loves them.

He doubts it, but he's always faithful.  
He bends down and helps to lift her.

*

Over steaming hot water, he pauses to catch his breath. His pulse is only just starting to slow but the _Semper Fi_ feels no effect of adrenaline and she's going as quickly as she can. He leans his weight on the edge of the basin and closes his eyes.

At some point, he becomes aware of being no longer alone.

“Are you waiting for me to ask?”

He doesn't open his eyes. He leans there and he listens to Brad breathing. He looks up and catches a glimpse of Brad standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, face turned to the side. He's changed his shirt. He's washed his hands.

He shakes his head.

Nate pushes away from the basin with both hands. He suddenly finds himself furious, and not without good reason. He moves, forcing himself into Brad's face. He's breathing is hard but, his whole life, when he's been this angry, all he's ever felt is cold.

“Don't act like you don't owe me a fucking explanation, Brad,” he snaps. “Because we don't know what we've got coming down on our heads, thanks to you.”

Ray had set charges and detonated body and ship together but that doesn't mean that she didn't send a transmission before she even set foot on the _Semper Fi_. They could have half the Alliance on their tails by now...

And Nate is nowhere near ready to be done yet.

“Okay,” says Brad. They're standing so close that Nate can feel Brad's breath against his skin. It's impossible not to think about being kissed by him but Nate struggles to stay angry. And he waits. Brad swallows hard and Nate watches him look down through his eyelashes.

“I was an Alliance operative,” he says, finally, voice low and tight. “I did...a lot of things. And then, three days ago, I killed my handler and I ran. I know Inara from a long way back...she put me in touch with Mal and Zoe did the rest.” He looks up. “I'm sorry, Nate. I'm sorry if I've fucked you.”

It's more or less what Nate was expecting; it's a variation on a story that he's heard a hundred different times. An operative, though. No wonder they came after Brad. No wonder Brad had taken his gun so easily.

None of it matters now, though. Not really. It's not their M.O to surrender. They may be fucked but they'll also keep fighting until the day when they physically can't. And then they'll crawl.

He doesn't feel the need to say any of that to Brad right then; he leans in and kisses him instead.

They fumble; Brad's hands are on Nate's shoulders, pushing at suspenders, pulling at his buttons. Nate pushes the fingers of one hand into Brad's short hair and holds on. Their mouths slip together and Brad pushes Nate back against the wall by the hips. His fingers are knotted in Brad's t-shirt, dragging up. 

The last person that Nate stripped was a soldier with a long scar down his side and wide, dark eyes and, naked, he'd turned his face away and blushed but Brad doesn't blush and his head stays up. Nate has no intention of getting screwed into the wall, not here, not with everything that's happened here today and not on his own damn ship, so he pushes forward with his hands and his hips, walking Brad backwards towards the bed, pulling his pants open as they go. Brad's hands are unbuttoning Nate's pants, pushing them down. They strip each other naked and Nate tries to remember the last time he was naked with this kind of intent.

He draws a blank and rolls, pressing his bare skin smooth against Brad's. Brad's hand skims down over his hip, fingers straying into the cleft of Nate's ass. His hips jerk and, in the space between their bodies, his cock grazes against Brad's belly and makes him gasp. Their fingers twine together, both between them, both curled and their cocks slide together and it's been too long and it's happened so quickly but it feels good and it feels right. Nate bends his head and rests his forehead against Brad's broad shoulder and rocks his hips and Brad rocks back. Nate holds their cocks together and presses into the friction, into the heat.

When he comes, he bites down on Brad's skin, hears him moan. A moment later, Brad's coming too, hot and slick between them and Nate's hips are still riding forward, like he can't help himself or be apart. The ship seems to sway around them and he sucks on Brad's tan skin and imagines them barrelling through space, throwing off light like a dying star. Brad wipes them both off with his t-shirt and then they lie there, side by side and Nate closes his eyes.

He falls asleep with one arm around Brad's chest, safe in the knowledge that, for a few hours at least, Ray can keep them in the air and moving forward.

*

In the end, he stands in the shadow of the ship and watches Brad walk away from him into a field of waist-high wheat. Brad's head is bowed and Nate's mouth is still damp from being kissed. Ray sits at the lip of the cargo-bay, swinging his booted cigarette and smoking his cigarette. In the distance, there's a settlement; squat, dark houses. The town is called _Redemption_ , which is a little heavy handed, but Nate's the man who named his ship _Forever Faithful_ and it is nice to think that he'll always have somewhere to come back to.

“Where to next, Homes?” asks Ray, but Nate's still watching Brad walk away and weighing up the fact that, wherever they go in the verse, he might always have somewhere to come back to. And, for the first time in years, that matters.

He never thought that he'd be happy on the ground again.

He can't see Brad any more and Ray's finished his cigarette by the time he finally turns his back on the warm wind shivering through the wheat.


End file.
